Silicon Valley's Next Bust

I read an article in the WSJ about a month ago about how Silicon Valleny should be able to withstand the next bust period. Apparently in the last bust between 2001 and 2005, one in five (or 20%) of people in the valley lost their jobs. That's a lot. Things have been picking up lately (the traffic keeps getting worse) and a bust period is likely in the next few years. Apparently this time, though, it shouldn't be as bad as last time. A couple reasons the articles sites for that:

Start-ups are running leaner these days: It's cheaper to operate web start-ups because of cheap technology, "open source" software, and offshoring.

Most companies aren't going public: A bunch of profitless Internet companies went public in the last bust, but they aren't this time around. So the common investor won't be affected.

The downside of that last point is that most companies aren't going public but instead holding out for an acquisition by a big player like Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo. The problem is that those companies can only make so many big purchases and there are a lot of options for them with tons of "me-too" types. That means a lot of those companies will go under.

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Biofuels May Hinder Anitglobal-Warming Efforts

Read an interesting article a couple weeks back in the WSJ on how biofuels may actually increase carbon emissions in the medium to long-term. Apprently the shifts in land-use necessary to support the production of bio-materials like soybeans, corn, or palm could in fact release more carbon emissions. The time it takes to get carbon-neutral on some of these projects is pretty crazy - 319 years for soybean biodiesel from Brazil (assuming you're clearing rainforest), 93 years for corn ethanol from the U.S. (assuming you're clearing grasslands), 86 years for palm biodiesel from Indonesia (assuming you're clearing rainforest). I suppose biofuels really aren't meant to reduce carbon emissions, but just crazy that they potentially exacerbate the problem so much.

Nine Prescriptions for Building the Duke Entrepreneurial Community

I think Duke can have one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Are we there yet? Well, not yet. But there's a tremendous amount of momentum that I saw build in just the past two years while I was getting my MBA at Duke. While leading Duke's 10th annual business plan competition, the Duke Start-Up Challenge (DSC) , last year, I witnessed a near doubling of participation on campus in just a single year. The interest on the ground was clearly there and building rapidly. But now that I'm an alum, I'm looking back and wondering ... how do we rev-up the Duke entrepreneurial community even more? I read a great article by Daniel Isenberg, a professor of management at Babson, called " How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution " in the June edition of the Harvard Business Review. Isenberg outlines nine prescriptions for governments that want to create entrepreneurship ecosystems in their countries. Although he was focused on governments an...

Bloomberg for President?

We can only hope. I read an article in the WSJ about how business people across the country, from entrepreneurs to bankers, are all hoping for Bloomberg to run. The economy thus far seems to have taken an unusual backseat in this years election but seems to be emerging as an important issue. An interesting excerpt: As the economy has emerged as a dominant issue in the 2008 campaign, candidates have struck populist notes, from Republican Mike Huckabee's boast that he is not a "wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street" to Democrat Barack Obama's visit to Wall Street to chastise finance executives for failing to protect the middle class. I can see the approach these guys are taking and I'm sure they have really smart campaign strategists. But I really wonder if this type of message of polarizing the "working man" vs. "big business" really resonates with voters anymore? Is the middle-class really that disgruntled with big business and income dispa...

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